Drosophila Cells in Culture » (1st Edition)

Echalier, Guy (Universite Pierre et Marie Curie)

Currently Drosophila is a dominant experimental model in developmental biology and in gene regulation in eukaryotes. This volume summarizes some thirty years of experience in the handling of in vitro cultured Drosophila cells. Its main emphasis is on gene transfer methodology, cell responses to heat shock, hormonal regulation of genes, and on the expression and mobility of transposable elements.
Highlights
• Some thirty years of experience in handling in vitro cultured Drosophila cells
• Cell cultures which provide material for a multiplicity of biochemical approaches
• DNA-mediated gene transfer as an irreplaceable tool for analyzing basic mechanisms of regulation
• Drosophila cell lines which qualify them for use in biotechnology

Andrew J. Andres

This book provides a comprehensive up-to-date source of information concerning the use of cultured Drosophila cells as a research tool. The purpose is to summarize the 30 years of work involved in establishing, maintaining, and using cultured Drosophila cells to span the gap between biochemical and organismal approaches to scientific questions. Its goal is to convince the reader that cultured cells have been and remain a viable and sometimes critical experimental system. This is an important objective, and the author is very convincing. Individuals most interested in this book would be practitioners of a research laboratory in a university or industrial setting. The author, a well-known and respected authority in the field, has the unique perspective of being involved in this system from its inception. The best feature of this book is its comprehensive nature. For example, it has the most complete list of cell lines and media formulation (and how these have evolved over time) that I have ever seen. It also does a very good job of summarizing the past and current literature and listing the important contributions that this system has made to our understanding of gene regulation and developmental genetics. The bibliography itself is invaluable. This book would serve as a crucial reference for anyone using Drosophila as a research organism, or anyone thinking of using Drosophila to assess gene function in an intact organism (i.e., testing vertebrate gene homologues in flies). Every campus library should own a copy, as should every Drosophila research laboratory. Even if a lab is not currently using cell culture, this book would serve thoseinterested in evaluating the feasibility of this system to address a specific question.